Cabinet secretary tells top babus to pull up their socks

After lack of business haunted the government for several days in the ongoing Parliament session, cabinet secretary Ajit Seth stepped for damage control.

Last week, Seth met several departmental secretaries and asked them to expedite the steps of listing bills as government business. According to a source present in the meeting, Seth underlined that Prime Minister Narendra Modi was not happy about the perceived lack of government business.

The government had initially listed 21 bills for consideration and passing. However, many ministries have not been able to prepare their bills.

Sensing this slackness, Seth also reiterated the steps involved in introducing a bill in the Parliament.

Sources in the government added that some ministries did not follow the right steps and failed to list their bills.

In the meeting, Seth also asked the secretaries to send him regular reports on the status of implementation of cabinet decisions.

He also asked the top bureaucrats to expedite the process of identifying 8-10 outdated rules and regulations to scrap them.